Various firearms such as AR 15 rifles may be “fired” without ammunition such that a hammer of the firearm is released, a practice commonly referred to as “dry firing.” While dry firing may not damage the firearm in some situations, such as when the firearm is completely assembled with both an upper receiver and a lower receiver, dry firing is generally not recommended when the upper receiver is not installed to avoid damaging components of the lower receiver such as the hammer or a bolt catch of the lower receiver.
While some devices allow firearms to be dry fired, these devices typically require that the upper receiver be installed when dry firing the firearm. Further, other devices require that a user of the firearm have a hand free to subsequently return the hammer to a cocked position such that the firearm may be subsequently dry fired, a process that the user must repeat for each time that the user desires to dry fire the firearm. This may require substantial movement of the user which may result in loss of sightline and other disruption of the process of dry firing the weapon. Additionally, it may be desirable to be able to rapidly return the hammer to a cocked position so that the firearm may be subsequently dry fired, such as when dry firing an automatic weapon.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,724 describes a cylindrical insert placed within a bolt carrier of a rifle or firearm. However, the cylindrical insert is not configured for dry-firing the lower receiver without the upper receiver. Further, a user must lift off of the lower receiver to move the bolt carrier to reset the firearm for dry firing. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0013201 describes a rifle lower receiver configured for dry fire training. However, the device of the '201 Publication is a substantial replica of a host weapon's lower receiver or requires substantial modification of a weapon's lower receiver.
What is needed, therefore, is a dry fire device that allows a firearm to be dry fired without the upper receiver installed, and that further allows a user to re-cock a hammer of the lower receiver without having to remove a hand from the firearm such that the firearm may be repeatedly dry fired.